To love is to surrender. To understand is to destroy mystery. To know is to give up innocence. To be is to stay in one mode of existence. To forgive is to forget retribution. To listen is to lose voice. To live is to die To die is to live To trust is to risk To risk is to expose To expose is to be weak ... but to be weak is to surrender. To surrender everything... is to truly love.

                                                     there is no           
                                                                      best



                                                                               only destiny                                                                                          
                                                                                            to fulfill

MP3 players have become the bain of music. Long gone are the days when music used to be something exclusive and something of worth and value. I remember days when I could actually stand listening to a song over and over again. I remember such low tech days in which I would record the same song over and over again on tape due to lack of a "repeat" function on walkmans. The advent of the internet, mp3, and file sharing for that matter has diluted the novelty that has surrounded music that I fondly remember many moons ago. Gone are the days in which one would borrow a CD or tape from a friend and record them onto a tape so that it could be listened to on a stereo in the bedroom or car. Now... I can hardly stand listen through a whole song on my iPod. Listen to the intro... flip... next song. Over and over again. Technology has spoiled me, and I have lost... in part... my pure appreciation of good music. Don't get me wrong here... I heart my iPod... it's one of the greatest gifts you can give a person... the gift of music.... whoa... that sounded like some corporate endorsement... Anyhoo... where was I... ah yes. Yes, I acknowledge that it's good that we're stickin' it to the record labels... and I think these labels are taking the WRONG route to the solution. They must somehow bring back that "special something" back into music... stop concentrating so much on profits and numbers, and FIND... not produce... music that can be enjoyed by all... hmm... I'm not making much sense here. IGNORE THE LAST PARAGRAPH. When I think of tapes... it simply brings me back to my childhood. Memories of dancing to the Ghostbusters soundtrack in the basement of Cecilia and Emily's house back in the day. My first walkman... an Aiwa with an external speaker that my parents got me from LA. How the music starts to slow down when the batteries on the walkman start dying out. The R & B mixtape I made with Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey. Who could forget the Seo Taiji and Boys tape that I sang along to without having a CLUE as to what they were saying. (Only now do I fully understand what they were talking about.) Even though technology gives us more freedoms... it really can be a killjoy.

Life is beautiful... because everything that bears any significance in life is all but hidden in what, at first, appears to be the insignificant.

Upon some protracted introspection, I find myself feeling very very old... and finally beginning to understand, let alone relate, to what my parents have been telling me all along. With life... and everything that is entrenched within it, without God... there is no other way. No matter how hard we try, all our successes and failures will be for nothing... and even with God in it, without the love that he brings into our hearts... and without the use of this love in whatever we are doing... irrelevance is born.

All my life, First Corinthians 13 has been something I've held dear to my heart. Yes... it's talking about love... but upon reading it over and over again, one finally comes to realize that it's not really talking about love as we know it or even feel it. It is something much deeper and mysterious.

So... I give you my interpretation of Corithians 13:




Even though I have the most eloquent set of words graced by any being in existence, without your love in my heart... those words have no bearing in any dimension.

Even though I am awarded all the PhDs in the land with all the social recognition that comes with it. Even though I am the greatest scholar or businessman of my time and have solved all the mysteries and problems of the past, present and future. Even if I make the scientific discovery of a lifetime, or engage in work that will mend the wounds of humankind... afflicted by disease, war, pain and suffering. Without your love in my heart... and without my love in those things... they mean nothing.

I can give all that I have to the bums on the streets till I myself am butt naked and blue in the face... Even if I endure the greatest persecution for my beliefs or my work till I am burn on a stake or shot in the head... even in these noblest deeds... without your love in my heart... without my opened heart that is receptive to your love... and without this love saturating the very essence of these deeds... they mean nothing.

Love is like a diamond... it is yesterday, it is today, and it is tomorrow in all things from people, to situations, to promises, to successes, and to failures. Love does things out of kindness... not out of some hidden subconscious benefit... not even for the sake of going to heaven or recieving some monetary like reward in heaven. Love doesn't get green. Love is a pretty quiet person and even in the silent moments, doesn't reflect on itself very much.

Love pulls out chairs and holds doors. Once again, love doesn't reflect too much on itself. Love doesn't get red. Love is one forgetful dude.

Love doesn't like evil... some may question what consitutes "evil", but love is above questioning that... and simply knows the difference between "evil" and the other. Love in itself is an expression of the truth; therefore, love seeks to see this expression come to fruition.

Love looks out for those above, below, in front, behind, and beside it. Love doesn't get suspicious... Love believes in hope, because to hope is to truly live. When one lives in love... they know what is meant to be... and what is meant to be will happen; therefore in short, love never gives up, never gives in.

Everything in this world is finite... there is no infinite. All the money, Armani suits, the 1956 Porsch 356A Cabrio Speedster Black, university degrees, high paying jobs, nicely furnished high rise condos in Yaletown, 1.5 kids, parents, teachers, even memories... everything we think we are building to last us a lifetime... everything we are working towards... one day... will be no more. Take your hand and blow on it... like dust leaving your palm... gone.

We all like to think we know... but in reality, we're really guessing most of the time. And love in itself is like the two sides of a coin... black and white... we all like to think that there are levels to it... but in reality... in the inner depths of our heart... it's perfect or not-perfect... there is or is not love. There is no "I think" in love... there isn't even an "I know"... it simpy is.

It's like when we were children... we had all these hopes and dreams... wishing and hoping... I'm not saying love is this way... what I am saying is that as we grow older... we may describe ourselves as becoming more "mature" but in reality, maybe we are growing into an existence that is unnatural to our true selves. If love is encompassed in the characteristics of what a child sees in this world... maybe we have lost ourselves... as the reflection on that mirror grows older as the days go by... and there is only a poor reflection of what was full. Therefore, when you allow love to creep in and when you introduce this love to everything else in your being... you will no longer be clueless to your true existence... but you will know fully and he will know you.

They question of which character was the greatest to be possessed by a man: they are faith, hope and love. But the one that eludes us to this day... and maybe till the last breath we take is... love.

"... there is no 'i' in team america." let's face the reality we have constructed for ourselves within our own cultural entity we being north american citizens (canada, being just one large "state" as my friends to the boony south would say) are entitled to rights and privileges that only seem to benefit us in the long run upon birth can we not help but be introduced to a society that only knows production and consumption and have incorporated such processes in the very re-production of our own selves the harsh constructed reality of our own lives presents subjective facts that suggest that we are only as good as the economic value we attach to our descriptions the television commerical for a certain financial organization gives the notion that those that are in control of the large part of finances define the individuals of this high income economy with economically stigmatic words thus inferring that upon transfering our monetary worth to that particular institution the stigmas would automatically disappear my father and mother have always instilled in me that economic wealth is not the most important thing in my immigrant life i only need to defeat a system that is counterconducive to my definition of happiness and attain that very same definition represented in my own life so in other words i need to be a slick mofo that live with contradictions in my life and find some coping strategy that will bring me the economic stability i apparently need while living in my team american existence the only thing i hold to be true and of worth in my mind are the teachings of an individual that has been with me for a very long time this person apparently suggests that the hardest thing for any individual to do is to deny oneself and follow a course of life that will bring no rewards that have been socially constructed but to look for things that cannot be defined or understood therefore everyone has the choice of believing in this path that one cannot see only feel and infer basically this person is saying to have faith in the power that each and every individual holds the power to choose and the power to follow deny oneself and follow be re-produced not into something that can be defined by conventional linguisitic modes but by something that is like a wind never seen but always felt follow the wind not by sight but by what you feel in the very depths of your forgotten soul

... so, we all live and learn.

But we never seem to learn in time.

I've been looking over some of the "journals" I've kept in the past... and I've noticed a not so nice progression towards an more enlightened state. More like a squiggly line going up and down and up and down and then down some more... a lot more. *Ahem* Not so much something I had in mind when I started writing these things. I guess it's more like a window into what I'm really thinking... but many a time I have been burned for divulging barn burner details in some entries. Being a person that tends to keep to himself, my family has an inquenchable thirst to dig up dirt on my life... or maybe they're just curious as to how I'm doing. From sister, mother, roomate, and girlfriend (in that order) ... all have sneaked a peak. It's like that moment in Bridget Jones... you all know which scene I'm talking about. (BTW: That movie had a anti-male, pro-feminine chick flick that flaunts it and knows it shudder factor of super ultra caption.)

I digress... as always.

I see moments documented in crappy awkward high school kid prose. The early entries are painful to read... I said a lot of things in such complex ways when I could have summed it up very easily in one sentence. But in those very entries... I see an innocent kid with innocent dreams. I see a kid who loved God with all of his heart and had hopes and dreams all within him. I see a kid who was lonely, tired, and in many instances, very sad. But simply put... I saw a boy who wanted to embrace the whole world and change it.

Where is this boy now?

There are moments in some entries where I could remember the feelings that were going though me as I wrote them. I can feel the rush of great triumphs... and taste that same defeat in the many failures.

We forget way to quickly... and way to often.

So, we live and learn...

But for me... never in time.

Are you living your dream?

Never give up.